“I think their guilt caught up with them.” He slows the car for a turn, and she can’t help but stare at his beautiful, steady hands, veins coiled up his forearms like embroidery thread. “They regretted how they treated you—and Jude—and then they chose this. Buttheychose it.” He glances at her again, his voice confident. “Your happiness is thebiggest ‘fuck you’ that you can give—” He winces. “Um, sorry. Er, a big ‘screw you.’”
Elodie mimes covering her belly. “Baby’s first word won’t bemamaordaddy. It’ll start withF.”
“Yeah, okay, okay, I’m trying.”
“You’re beautiful when you’re trying.” She rests her head on the window and thinks, for a minute, of peeling out of her skin and leaving the rotted, tainted flesh behind, becoming something new in a vicious rebirth of sinew and viscid organ juices. A woman without a past, a woman without memories. A woman who doesn’t have to weigh her husband’s words with sickened, anxious care and figure out how to respond normally. She must be normal. “They were never the same after my little brother died. They barely cared if I was around or not, so this has nothing to do with me.” She says it with a watery smile even though she feels sick to her core.
He reaches for her thigh and squeezes. “What you need is a distraction so you don’t have to keep thinking about this. And lucky for you”—he sounds cheerful—“we are on a journey—no, anadventure—to purify our souls.”
“You want to buy useless shit.”
“Yes, I want to buy useless shit.” Bren beams happily. “Also, who’s swearing now, hmm?”
She pokes her tongue out at him, and the world feels a little less frayed at the edges.
The old estate looks like a torn-out page of a gothic fairy-tale book. The Victorian sits well back from the road behind a stone archway and surrounded by immaculate gardens, the lawn a swept sea of luscious green. The dark roof and turrets give the house an oppressive, reserved feeling, and Elodie feels uneasy looking at the place. Rows of glossy cars line the pebble driveway in respect for the grass, anddozens of people mill around the long tables filled with antiques and knickknacks set out on the lawn. Bigger furniture pieces have been carried outside, and everything seems incredibly gorgeous—and expensive.
“This place looks haunted,” she says as Bren maneuvers into a parking space beside a glossy Cadillac. “When a ghost slips down my throat and possesses our baby, it’ll be your fault.”
“Baby might come out with a witch’s hat,” Bren says. “That’d be cool.”
She does a spooky finger wave in his face.
This is everything she craves: their easy banter, the way their humor matches, the ease in which their words bounce off each other. He scrabbles out of his driver’s seat and bolts around to open her door and then helps her out before landing a fierce kiss straight on her open mouth.
Her smile dims into a heavy sigh as she pops Jude’s door open. He has his arms folded, not looking at her. The sleeve of her black sweater rides up to show the bite mark turned splotchy and yellow since yesterday. He looks at this with interest as she half lifts, half drags him out of the car. She tries to wipe his snotty face with a tissue, but he jerks free and takes off running up the driveway. It’s only now she notices he isn’t wearing shoes and his jeans are falling down and his rumpled, striped sweater is on backward and covered in crumbs.
“I am,” Elodie says, her teeth clenched, “so tired.”
“I’ve got you.” Bren slings an arm around her waist as they walk toward the estate sale. “I’ve got him, too, for what it’s worth.”
“Great. Next time, you get bit.”
When they reach the tables, their attention splits and they wander in different directions like children in a candy store. The thrill of the hunt takes the edge off her annoyance and she is drawn in bythe antique kitchenware and delicate china and vases threaded with gold leaf. There are immense mahogany armoires with breathtaking carvings and dining chairs with original arcading and a delicate writing desk with tiny birds carved in the scrollwork. She wants to touch everything, to imagine where she would put different pieces in their house if they had infinite funds.
Bren has found his chairs and is talking excitedly with the owner, his gestures enthusiastic and his expression like an overexcited puppy. What he needs is a lesson on hiding how much he wants something so they don’t overcharge him. Though that is half the reason why she fell in love with him—he is so open and honest and real, and it’s endlessly endearing. She smiles at him across the lawn before checking to see where Jude scurried off to.
Small stone walls line the garden beds of hydrangeas and neatly trimmed shrubbery, and Jude is currently climbing to the top of the wall and jumping off. Elodie is about to go over and make him stop when a little girl skips over and climbs up next to him.
Elodie hesitates, an anxious buzzing behind her eyes, and she considers hurrying across the lawn to snatch Jude away from whatever unreasonable reaction he will have to his game being interrupted. But nothing happens. He stands atop the little wall and puts his thumb in his mouth, watching the girl leap off with a joyous shriek. She’s wearing fairy wings and a tutu.
“I can’t convince her to wear anything except her ‘fairy princess queen’ outfit.”
Elodie spins and finds the assumed mother of the little fairy queen. She wears a lavender cashmere cardigan with pearls at her throat, her nails done, her makeup light against pale skin. Elodie feels like a swamp goblin in her black jeans and black sweater that also, she realizes, sports the same crumbs Jude wears.
She surreptitiously begins to pick off the mess as she smiles in what she hopes seems warm and not simply worn out.
“I’m just trying to keep any clothes on him.” Elodie regrets the joke as soon as it’s out, because she doesn’t exactly need to slap a “sloppy parent” sticker to her forehead.
But the woman laughs. “Oh, I’ve been there. How old is he? Maeve just turned six, and I promise they grow out of it.”
“Four.” It comes out of Elodie’s mouth so smoothly she’s shocked at herself for the ease with which she reaches for the lie. She should at least flush with guilt, but somehow she keeps her expression neutral, pleasant, and relief is like a cool balm on the churning, ill feeling she’s carried all day. Jude’s behaviors, his size, his thumb in his mouth, aren’t alarm bells for a preschooler and what she wants most is for no one to judge her son.
She should have thought of this lie earlier.
Both children have stopped leaping off the wall now, and the little girl takes Jude’s hand and begins leading him around, pointing to things and petting his hair. It’s equal parts adorable and unreal to watch: Jude being toted around agreeably without a fight. His rabbit flops about under his arm, and when he drops it, the little girl hurries to pick it up for him.
“They’re so curious at that age. Maeve is such a little mother.” The woman’s smile is full of reminiscing. “Do you live nearby? We’re just down the road.”
